Pace of early language development

[Matthew Saxton]

Thanks for the clarification, Brian (and for the reference, also).

 

And rest assured, I won't ask you to do the maths (even though the
answer would be fascinating......).

 

Matthew.

 

 

 

From: info-childes at googlegroups.com
[mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brian MacWhinney
Sent: 03 August 2009 17:19
To: info-childes at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Pace of early language development

 

Matthew,

 

    Actually, my analysis was based on this same assumption.  The
Doppler effect should be clearest between adults and young teens.  Labov
also emphasizes the role of women in their twenties, alongside young
male teens, but the general point is that young people in various social
configurations are the chief instigators of new sound patterns,
grammaticalizations, neologisms, and the rest.  Toddlers are certainly
not the sources.  Although younger children not innovators in this way,
they can play another role in terms of implementing cue hierarchy
reconfiguration and leveling. 

    Regarding the famous working class/middle class split in the UK and
Basil Bernstein's ideas about a restricted code, you may find this
analysis of UK preschools interesting, if only historically:

 

MacWhinney, B., & Osser, H. (1977). Verbal planning functions in
children's speech. Child Development, 48, 978-985.

 

Of course that was all before the large expansion of immigrant
populations in the UK.  When one factors in the role of having
additional L1 sources, then the Linguistic Special Relativity effect
would be enhanced.  Please don't ask me to do the math.

 

-- Brian

 

On Aug 3, 2009, at 6:28 AM, Matthew Saxton wrote:





I think Brian's suggestion is ingenious. However, to my knowledge,
language change is especially driven by young people in the teenage
years - with the introduction of new meanings, terms and phrases -
rather than by toddlers.

 

The perception of a linguistic decline over successive generations is
sometimes driven by political considerations. A recent U.K. example is
the Bercow Review (by the same John Bercow who is now Speaker of the
House of Commons). Without citing any specific sources, his report
suggests that:

 

Approximately 50% of children in some socio-economically disadvantaged
populations have speech and language skills that are significantly lower
than those of other children of the same age.

 

The implication is that a steep decline is in train within the U.K.,
ascribable to socioeconomic factors. One such factor is whether or not
English is the child's first language. It has become increasingly common
for very young children, who have had little exposure to English, to be
placed in English-language Nursery settings. Such children will
naturally depress average scores on standardised language tests,
especially in the early stages of their exposure to English. But one
could not argue from such data that the language learning capacities of
children had declined in any way.

 

Regards,

 

Matthew Saxton.

 

 

 

************************************************************************
*********************************

 

Department of Psychology and Human Development,

Institute of Education,

University of London,

25 Woburn Square,

London,

WC1H 0AA.

 

Tel: 020-7612-6509

Fax: 020-7612-6304

 

http://www.ioe.ac.uk <http://www.ioe.ac.uk/> 

 

 





 



 


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